Generalized Anxiety, Like a Dark and Winding Road

Did you ever wake up one day and realize it’s been a week or more since you experienced chronic anxiety or a panic attack?

Photo by Tirza van Dijk on Unsplash

Tonight I shed a lot of tears. I was doing a bit of reflection and realized there was a time when I felt a glimmer of hope because I had been free from the chains of chronic anxiety along with panic attacks for weeks at a time in my 40’s. I thought possibly my anxiety was dissipating. I was wrong.

Once I hit menopause, it seems my generalized anxiety became not only a visitor but a permanent resident residing within me. I held on to hope that once I hit a certain stage during menopause, my anxiety disorder would lighten up again. Wrong.

I look back on the progress I felt I was finally making during my 40’s and it feels like grief at this time. I grieve for the person I thought I was becoming, I grieve for all that I’m missing out on in life because, generalized anxiety disorder makes you feel like a prisoner in your own body.

I developed agoraphobia, it’s hard for me to leave my home. I won’t leave if I don’t have to and when I do have to go somewhere, I can barely function days or weeks leading up to an out of town gathering- that includes getting together with my immediate family… seriously, how pathetic is that? My biggest fear of leaving home (or not being…